1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for harvesting agricultural produce. More specifically the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for receiving, storing, and selectively transferring agricultural produce into a transport carrier.
2. Prior Art
Harvesting of agricultural produce is a task that has been performed in a variety of ways by farmers for countless generations. It is a labor that is not restricted to any particular area, but is common through out the world.
Originally, harvesting began by manual labor, whereby individuals would pick an agricultural product out of the ground by hand, clean-off clumps of soil from the product, and place the goods in a temporary container to await final delivery. Harvesting by this process, however, was obviously costly in terms of worker time and energy.
With the development of modern technology, harvesters were constructed which eliminated much of the manual labor that had previously been necessary to carry out harvesting functions, and thereby decreased the amount of time required for harvesting. In a basic harvester, means are provided by machines to physically extract agricultural produce from the soil. These extraction means are typically combined with means to clean the extracted agricultural produce and for separating the produce from associated waste materials. Once these processes are completed, the processed produce is stored temporarily in the field until it can be placed in a final storage area, such as a warehouse, or shipped to market.
The basic harvester is pulled by a tractor. Mechanisms on the harvester for processing produce are powered from the tractor. Once out of the ground, the produce is cleaned for example by a rod link conveyor as it moves the produce to a temporary storage facility in the field.
One way agricultural produce has been temporarily stored has been by the use of an vehicle adjacent to a harvester. Typically, a truck is driven along the side of a harvester. Processed agricultural goods are dispensed from the harvester to the traveling truck. Usually, this can be accomplished without the need for lengthy stops by the harvester to exchange each full vehicle with a new empty one.
Unfortunately, problems arise when an adjacent vehicle is necessary to store the agricultural produce and must be driven alongside the harvester. First, the use of a vehicle along the side of the harvester increases the amount of labor and equipment required for harvesting a crop because one person is needed to operate and tow the harvester, while another is needed to operate the accompanying storage vehicle.
Also, the space occupied by the accompanying vehicle, at least on the first pass of the harvester along the edge of the field, is unable to be harvested, as the weight of the vehicle crushes the unharvested crops as it drives over them. Although on subsequent passes of the harvesting process, the accompanying vehicle can be driven next to the harvester over already harvested soil, initially, the vehicle must be driven over unharvested soil.
Most harvesters employing an adjacent accompanying vehicle harvest agricultural products in plots of countless hundreds of acres. Because of the large amount of land that is set aside for the harvesting process, the loss of merely one row of crops on the first pass of the equipment through the field is not a severe detriment to the entire operation.
Not all farmers, however, cultivate such large land areas. This is the case in most areas of Asia, Africa, South America and in some areas of Europe and North America. In such areas, it is not desireable to employ the types of harvesters thus far described because the loss of even one row of unharvested agricultural produce due to the temporary storage of the goods in an accompanying vehicle is a big problem. Instead, where the local farming economics permit mechanized harvesting, farmers employ harvesters that have been designed to provide for temporary produce storage directly thereupon. This prevents the destruction of even a single row of unharvested agricultural produce.
Transient produce storage harvesters which have been used previously, generally place a storage container for the produce directly on the top of the frame of the harvester. The location of such containers is at the front of the harvester, because typically the rear is employed as a processing pathway to separate the agricultural produce from associated waste material.
The configuration of the storage containers is very tall with the longer sides of the container sides extending laterally across the front of the harvester. This allows for a greater amount of produce which can be temporarily stored and decreases the number of times the container has to be emptied once it is filled to capacity. Also, the containers have side doors which may be opened to permit the accumulated harvested produce to exit the container. By way of example, FIG. 1 illustrates such a harvester 10 in which a storage container takes the form of a high profile tank 12 located at the end of harvester 10 adjacent the towing vehicle 14 by which the harvester is towed through the field of harvest.
Produce 16, shown by way of example as potatoes, is transferred to tank 12 by a conveyor belt 18 and allowed to fall to the floor of tank 12 as shown by arrows A. Tank 12, being tall and wide, positions the weight of produce 16 in one concentrated area of the frame 20 of harvester 10.
Discharge of produce 16 from the tank 12 is accomplished through a door 22 on one side of tank 12. A hydraulic ram 24 positioned on the side of tank 12 causes door 22 to open downwardly along a hinge on the bottom of tank 12. As door 22 opens, scissored side walls unfold so that produce is not spilled from the tank. A conveyor belt along the floor of tank 12 and along the inside surface of door 22 then operates to push the produce out of the tank into a transport carrier.
Although transient produce storage harvesters such as harvester 10 shown in FIG. 1, accomplish some goals for which they were designed, they fail to accomplish those goals in an optimum manner. For the most part, because the containers are very tall and wide, the weight of the produce they carry is concentrated in one central area of the harvester. This creates stress on the harvester system generally. Also, steering problems occur in the vehicle towing the harvester, because the weight of the stored produce is concentrated close to the tow bar by which the towing vehicle 14 tows harvester 10. Tremendous stress is imposed on the tow bar.
The high profile of transient produce storage harvesters also causes problems with tipping. The high center of gravity causes great instability. If the harvester encounters any side-to-side movement, the momentum of the stored produce can tip the entire harvester off of its wheels into an inoperational position on its side.
An additional problem with the tall configuration of the storage container is that it causes damage to the produce. In the beginning stages of filling tank 12, the produce must fall a great distance between conveyor belt 18 and the floor of tank 12. Because of this fall, the produce becomes bruised and damaged. Then, as filling proceeds and more and more produce is stacked in tank 10, more and more pressure is exerted upon the produce in the bottom. This growing pressure further bruises and damages the bottom produce.